El Colegio opened in the fall of 2000 with a commitment to change the traditional
high school experience and serve a diverse group of students in grades 9-12.
El Colegio is a charter high school with a focus in the arts, environment, and
technology, with a continual focus on Spanish/English bilingualism. Students
work with advisors to develop their own curriculum consistent with Minnesota's
Graduation Standards. Students achieve knowledge in all subjects through project-based
learning.

Presently, the student population is about 50% Latino, however, the school
serves all cultures. The school is dedicated to increasing the high school graduation
rate for students of color and increasing the number of students of color who
go on to college.

- Students achieve knowledge in all subjects through project-based learning.
- Increasing the high school graduation rate for students of color.
- Increasing the number of students of color who go on to college.

Overall Task: Over the academic summer vacation of 2004, develop and complete
a photography project with a small group of El Colegio students to address issue
of access to higher education for undocumented youth using the Declaration of
Human Rights and federal legislation called the Dream Act as source material.
The participating youth choose to take an active roll in addressing this human
rights issue that affects them. Use photography as a means to communicate their
experiences of those issues. Then, exhibit the project at various venues around
the Twin Cities.

-Worked with El Colegio and El Centro de Cultura to secure remaining budget
needs for project.
- Worked with participating students to develop a project time line, workshop
dates, due dates, etc. over the summer months.
- Developed lesson plans for project workshops to address:

- Took pictures, develop, and edit photos collectively.
-Organized field trip to photographer and activist, Dick Bancroft’s studio.
Topic: The power of photography: Photography and Activism.
- As the project progressed, collaborated with El Colegio faculty to work towards
fulfilling credits and graduation standard requirements with this project for
the participating students. I continue to work towards this goal.
-After teaching Photoshop, doing test prints as a group, my personal responsibility
was:
- Print the 22 photographs using the Minneapolis College of Art and Design printer,
(inks donated by MCAD).
-Matt and frame photos (Matt board donated by Moose Horn Framing Studio).
-Wrote group artist statement collectively.
-Hung show at El Colegio Charter School collectively
-Continue to find external venues to exhibit work.
-Work with local newspapers, media.
-Continue to network and partner with other organizations, senators, etc. who
advocate for similar immigration reform and to re-introducing similar legislation
at next legislative session.

Accomplishments/Challenges:

As you can see through the educational goals and task list above, this was a
large project for students to undertake during the summer months. High expectations,
a wide range of educational goals, difficult concepts to apply to visual art
making, and a large time commitment were all asked of the three participating
girls. The ambitiousness of the project created both its success and challenges.
When observing it in hindsight, I realize the breadth of our accomplishments.
I also better understand the difficulties, challenges, and frustrations of what
we set out to do.

Using concepts like education as a human right and legislation as source material
for photography without making the photographs purely illustrative is a very
hard thing for any artist to do, especially someone who is making pictures for
her first time. I also asked the students to visually describe their experience
of U.S. education, and their feelings (hopes, dreams, realities) about higher
education, as undocumented youth.

My challenge was this: How would I help break down such abstract concepts to
questions that could be answered visually? Their challenge (one of the many,
I’m sure) was to write in response to hard questions I posed, and then
find a way to visually communicate their answers. This was hard work for all
of us, at times frustrating. We communicated in Spanish. At times the concepts
exceeded my fluid, conversational level Spanish, and at moments, all of our
Spanish vocabulary. We waded through the language barriers. The journaling fell
flat sometimes, but also wielded profoundly insightful, eye-opening results.
My observation was that the students were often very excited to communicate
those new found insights into their experiences. In the end, the students produced
a rich, fantastically complex, beautiful and true body of work. The end photographs
were a huge accomplishment of this work.

Attendance was my biggest challenge. I was working with students whose attendance
record during the school year was often poor. This project was during summer
vacation and mainly extracurricular in nature (the project wasn’t originally
set up to include credits). For those reasons, the project carried little incentive
and motivation. In addition, it asked for a large chunk of the students’
summer time. Transportation to school was also a hindrance for some students.
The public transportation was always an option, but the bus was over an hour
ride. These were the circumstances of the situation. Getting the girls to show
up was hard, understandably. Getting them to show up on time was nearly impossible.
I began to pick up the students in the morning and together we went to school.
That helped the problem. I dealt with questions about student / instructor boundary
lines.

At other moments, it appeared that some students would not follow through with
the projects. I constantly worked to structure the project so that the students
had ownership of it and remained engaged. At times it went smoothly, at other
times I thought that the project might fail –how can you make photographs
with out the photographers? In the end, the students did follow through and
worked very to get there. They showed huge amount of pride and gratification
in seeing the work hanging on the wall at their school. Throughout, I believed
that if they saw their final work hanging on the wall, it would be a profound
experience for them. Yet, I often held my breath, not quite sure if we could
sustain the summer-work-pace needed to get there. This was a roller coaster,
an ebb and flow of energy and motivation that we worked through together.
Now, if possible, it is important to me that they get credits that they both
need and deserve for this project. I continue to work toward this goal.

The challenges I faced with this fellowship were very different than ones from
international experiences in the past. Here, I was working with a small, intimate
and highly collaborative way with caring, intelligent, and sometimes volatile
teenager girls. They live as teenagers in the United States, concerned with
similar issues as other teens here. They also live with the tension of constant
deportation, or the deportation of a loved one, and many other cross-cultural
issues. Our project was intimate and focused. Balancing deep collectivity and
collaboration with teaching, while forming these relationships was the way I
worked.
I learned a huge amount about the challenges and rewards of teaching. I leaned
a lot about myself and how I worked in this both as an instructor and a collaborator.
I did use the K-12 Human Rights Curriculum model, which was very helpful in
structuring my lesson. I would be happy to talk about that further if it would
be interesting or helpful.

Over the next year, I will continue to find exhibition venues to show the project.
I have recently connected with other organizations that have also been involved
in the Dream Act.

El Colegio Charter School, The Minnesota Center for Photography (MCP), and
Highpoint Center for Printmaking have partnered in a project. The project involves
adolescent girls from El Colegio Charter School and MCP’s upcoming exhibit
Girl Culture, by Lauren Greenfield. The girls will be asked to make prints in
response to the exhibit – make prints about reactions to the exhibit,
but also to share their experiences as adolescent girls today. This is another
opportunity for girls to use the camera to communicate their experience during
this critical point of adolescence. Because of the Human Rights Fellowship photo
project with El Colegio, the parties have asked me to participate in the project.
Starting in January, I will be working with the girls and organizations as a
visiting artist and instructor.

How has your motivation for human rights work changed/altered or remained the
same?

My motivation to do Human Rights work has really been re-enforced by this experience.
As a candidate for a master of fine arts degree, I am in an area of study, the
art world, which is not directly linked to human rights work. I know and trust
I can mobilize it for human rights work, but presently I study art theory, criticism,
and technique. The theory is interesting and often applicable to my interests,
but it does not involve human rights, politics, international relations, or
other related fields. When in the depths of the program requirements, it is
hard to see and trust in an end were my interests in art and human rights will
merge. The fellowship gave me an opportunity to merge these subjects now and
test it out through the human rights photography project. The project renewed
my trust in this long-term vision. It sparked new ideas, and invited me back
into a social justice oriented community.

Who had the greatest effect on you during your fellowship experience and why?

The students. They sent me on an emotional swing. At times, I was incredibly
frustrated for spending a lot of energy on the project, when they didn’t
appear responsive at all. On one end, I even panicked. For example, one student
lost all her negatives for a few weeks before recovering them. At other times
the students would be very engaged and share eye opening, brilliant writings,
ideas and photographs with me. I learned huge amounts about each girl’s
culture and personal experience from those times. Those were moments when she
was the most special person on earth. In working with a small, intimate group,
I was able to see each student open up to her own world, new knowledge, and
become more confident in herself – and each student truly did in her own
way.

How did your perspectives on the world change from interning at a local/national/
international human rights organization?

After spending time volunteering, traveling, and studying abroad in the past,
it was important for me to stick around home and work on important human rights
issues here. My perspective changed from saying that there was work to do here,
to actually being motivated to continue to work here. In light of our recent
presidential election, now is a hugely important time, and huge challenge, to
work hard here. Who is going to advocate for immigrant reform if not a collaboration
of U.S. citizens and immigrants together? At the Minnesota state level I am
optimistic about future legislation like the DREAM Act passing this time around
in the legislative session.

As we wrote in our artist statement: “In Betsy’s words, we “believe
that it is because of education that we are here. Experiments and inventions
have created the progression of our society. Education isn’t always necessary
to survive, but it’s very necessary to progress.” The Declaration
of Human rights recognizes that humans need all rights in order to thrive. We
believe in a country (the United States) that allows its cultures and people,
those who create its social and economic fabric, to survive and thrive.

For now, there is a whole lot of work to do in the United States and I am committed
to push this big, lumbering, awkward country to progress.

After completion of your fellowship, how do you anticipate bringing your fellowship
experience back home to your local community?

This photography project was made specifically to be seen in the local community.
There are two copies of every photograph: one copy for El Colegio, and one that
is part of the traveling exhibition. As stated above, we continue to exhibit
at local venues. Presently, the work is hanging at the Resource Center of the
Americas, Minneapolis, MN.